For at least 1,500 years, two giant Buddha statues existed at Bamyan, Afghanistan northwest of Kabul.

In 2001, Islamic clerics urged the Taliban to blow the statues up, declaring them to be idolatrous. The Taliban obliged, destroying the centrepieces of this UNESCO world heritage site.

People still live in the cliffs, and one of them is Baktay, the six-year-old protagonist of first-time Iranian director Hana Makmalbakh's film Buddha Collapsed Out Of Shame. The title comes from a notion that even a statue can implode in the face of tragic injustice.

Anyways, seeing Abbas, the boy next door, practicing his ABCs puts the learning bug in Baktay. The film is about how she spent her day trying to get into school

Nothing happens easily for her. She snatches and tries to sell eggs, but only raises enough money for a notebook, not a notebook and pen. She crashes an all-boy's class, but the teacher kicks her out and tells her to go to the girl's school.

On the way there, she runs into some "Taliban" who take their role-playing a bit too seriously. At one point, they are poised over her with rocks. Some are digging her grave.

She escapes and tells a traffic cop that the boys are holding some other girls. He bemusedly blows her off by saying he's just a traffic cop.

Girl's school doesn't go so well for Baktay either.

On her way home from there, the wild boys are after her again. This time, they are American fighters and she's the terrorist. As she's surrounded, Abbas yells to her: "Baktay: Die and you'll be free."

Freedom  through death is a choice that, tragically, many Afghan women find themselves making.

While the movie is ostensibly about children, I don't think it's too far of a stretch to say that Makmalbakh may have also been making an indirect statement about the plight of adult Afghan women.

For me, I liked the view of ordinary lives. What I see is that Bamyan appears to be a place largely untouched by modernity.

The film is well-crafted, and like many Iranian films I've seen, just kinda ends. :)

It's definitely an art-house movie, but if you interested in allegorical films involving cute kids and a locale most westerners know nothing about, then you might find 'Buddha' to be worth checking out. There's one more screening on Friday morning.